Perichoresis: Post Hell And Still Smiling
by Elisabeth Carmichael
Summary: E/O. 'Perichoresis'- mutual interpenetration; when two people become one. E/O from a slightly different point of view. Please read and review!


**A.N.** This is written like an article from a magazine. As per the usual, the characters, etc. are on loan. Hope you enjoy! Reviews- positive, negative, neutral, constructive, always welcome and much appreciated!

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**Perichoresis: Post Hell...And Still Smiling**

by Elisabeth Carmichael

**Post Hell…And Still Smiling**

_By Maureen Stabler Riese, PhD_

It's strange how despite the constant motion of things, people never really changed. I don't mean that individuals do not evolve over the course of a lifetime, though I suspect a great number stagnate around age three, but that as a whole, human nature is essentially the same as it was over two thousand some odd years ago.

The deeper I delve into the world of the Classics, the more I am convinced that human nature has remained curiously immune from evolution. Observations made by Aristotle in the 4th Century B.C. are still applicable today in the 21st Century A.D. This struck during the course of my undergraduate study and subsequently became the basis for my dissertation, tracing the idea of perichoresis from Aristotle to early Christians to present day.

My freshman year philosophy teacher provided the best definition. Perichoresis: mutual interpenetration; the loss of awareness of where oneself stops and the other begins.

I remember so distinctly our class discussion of the idea. Most everyone dismissed it as overly romantic, unrealistic, or beyond human experience. They could accept it on a religious level, if they were Christians, as a way to explain the relationship between God and Jesus. But no one was willing to recognize its existence in the human world, at least not in modern times. Perhaps back when Aristotle was writing, but certainly not now, and most definitely not in New York City of all places.

Mine was the only voice of dissent. Immediately I knew that this idea of perichoresis was not simply meant for the past or for the divine. At the time I could not explain how I knew this; I had no proof, no explanation. I just knew.

Overtime I came to realize that I had experienced the power of this perichoresis; I had witnessed a mutual interpenetration. But I did not know when or where or who. It was just this knowledge with absolute conviction though for the life of me I could not ascertain how I came to possess this knowledge.

It became almost a religion, my belief in the real, modern existence in perichoresis. I never had delusions about one day experiencing it for myself first hand. In fact, I was almost certain that I would never lose awareness of where I stop and another begins. I never viewed it through a romantic lens. I just knew it existed and knew of its magnetic power.

After hundreds of hours of classes and papers and studies, thousands of sheets of paper, millions of words in support, the source of my identification with perichoresis remained veiled. Meeting "the love of my life," exchanging wedding vows, experiencing the fireworks of orgasm, obtaining my PhD, none of it brought me any closer to understanding why this concept is still pertinent. Eventually I accepted my position, remaining in the dark.

And then today, the day my divorce became final, the day I lost the pregnancy I had tried so hard for, the day I thought would end with me crawling back inside the bottle that had cost me more than one relationship, I knew. I knew why I had such conviction in perichoresis, knew how I knew that it most definitely still existed. What had taken me years of trying to unveil was suddenly revealed to me on the most ironic of days in the most ironic of ways.

The nurse was explaining something or other about fluids and rest as I was being discharged. I was preoccupied with the other sounds of the E.R., screaming, crying, laughing, creaking gurneys, squeaking tennis shoes on linoleum floor, charts banging together, fingers tapping nervously on laminate countertop.

The couple two paces behind me had just lost their son. The man ten yards to my left had just been sedated with Haldol. The doctors and students who just walked by were heading toward a trauma room where the victim of an MVA was waiting. Somewhere on the other side of the curtain a woman was frantically trying to find out information on a victim of some shootout while simultaneously attempting to console another person, someone close to the victim.

And that's when it happened, right after that woman let out an unconvincing "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be okay." I felt it. And then I heard it. From the person she had unnecessarily been attempting to console. "I know." Then a beat in which I'm quite certain the first woman gave the second woman a questioning look. "_I'm_ fine, Case. I know he's going to be okay…_I'm_ okay."

In the emotion of the moment, I failed to immediately recognize the voices. But it took mere seconds for me to realize what was going on. I knew them. The second voice belonged to a woman I had known for close to fourteen years. And I knew why I had such an intimate connection to perichoresis. That woman was my father…part of my father…intertwined with him so that not even I, his daughter, could recognize where one stopped and the other began.

They had been partners fourteen years and the foundation for my profound belief in the present day existence of perichoresis since that first philosophy class. And on this day that should have shattered any optimistic tendencies I might have had, I was able to affirm that I too am fine; I too am okay.

_Dr. Riese is a full-time professor in the Classics and Philosophy departments at New York University. She is the author of three prose books and a decorated poet. Her column "Non-Evolution" appears weekly in newspapers around the country, and she frequently writes guest pieces for major magazines._


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